Ginga Densetsu Akame
by Kuckucksei
Summary: What happened to Akame when he was younger? What made him the dog he is? I do not own the Ginga Series, next one is presumably John or the Kai brothers. On Hiatus.
1. Prologue

Ginga Densetsu Akame

Prologue

When Akame-san was born, he was born heir to the Iga House. This was before Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin or Ginga Densetsu Weed, two months before Ginga Densetsu Riki. This is the story of Akame, and how he became the legendary brave dog who helped save Ohu Paradise twice. Akame's story began in the outskirts of the Iga Village, when the Iga Village was far and widespread, and his story also ended there.

_Akame hadn't originally been the destined leader of the Iga. He'd been born the runt of the litter, the smallest one; being the runt meant you had the least chance of getting picked as Official Village Leader. And so, Akame had been born the runt._

_However, he was far from whiny and needy, unlike most other runts. He patiently waited in line for his turn (comical, yes) and, although he was born blind and deaf, as all puppies are, he could swing his head in the direction of a dog's voice._

_After he was eight weeks old, Akame took pleasure in romping around the Iga House, studying the technique scrolls, and pestering his superiors with endless questions._

"_How does Secret Ninjutsu: Dance of the Leaves work?_

"_Does Genjutsu: Rolling Flowers require ten percent of chikara or fifteen percent?_

"_What does Kin-Ninjutsu mean?"_

_His superiors would try their best to answer his questions, often ending with, "Leave me alone and in peace, Akame-sama!"_

_And then Akame would chase butterflies, pounding his appendages into shape. He would hop, leap, and snap at the twirling insects, catch the falling leaves, saunter about the long grass, pretending to be a real Nīnken sneaking up on a foe._

_When he was bored with that, he would go and study science with Arrow, the only Nīnken tutor who would not look at him in disgust or frustration._

_So life for Akame was very easy and happy…_

_Until _that day happened.


	2. Kurojaki

**Chapter One**

**Kurojaki**

_Recap: In the last chapter, we learned a little about Akame and his personality. He was very calm and peaceful, but still untrained in heart and mind. What is in store for Akame? And what is "that day?"_

Akame was, one day, taking his regular everyday romp in the woods. At first, the woods were exactly as they always were: populated with birds, graced by the occasional black squirrel or tawny porcupine. A milk snake wreathed through the leaf litter on the floor, flashing bright colors. A lizard scurried past low shrubs in a streak of neon green.

But as he walked deeper into the forest, he was noticing strange things that hadn't been there yesterday: the trees were bare, looking like nefarious clawed hands snatching at the skies, the chirps lessened from fowl. There was a slight, misty haze hanging low, about neck height. And it was also quiet.

Dead quiet.

Akame slowed his pace a little. He was sure he'd just smelled something disgusting. Rotting. What could something so horrific be doing in the once-beautiful woods that he had ventured so long?

And he stopped. There was a clearing, a circle of the claw trees around a sunny, golden ground. _So ironic, _he scoffed. _Light in a dark place?_ But he squinted just then, and his eyes made out a big pile of … mass in a far – not corner, for circles don't have corners – reach.

Akame slunk toward it, feeling a suspicious dread. The mass looked very much like a compost pile made of sleeping Dogs. He was in the open, but all he cared about was investigating the pile. Thus, he did not see the two eyes glaring at him from the underbrush, two mischievous but innocent eyes, like those of a pup's.

He sniffed around the pile. It smelled like rotting. So _this _was the unpleasant smell. And slowly, carefully, he looked up from the ground

_AND GASPED _because there were two blank, dull eyes boring into his own. Shocked, Akame stepped back and observed the whole of the enormous lump. What was once a compost pile in his eyes, fourteen feet away, was now a heap of rotting corpses, with flies landing on each Dog's nose. The pup, just barely a couple of months, hadn't really needed to see what was in front of him; indeed, he could have gone for a year or two without having to scar his life like he was doing now.

A rustle in the bushes distracted his attention from the pile. Akame waited, puzzled. And then behind him…

"WHEEEEEEEE!"

He spun around too late, and a pup launched onto his back and knocked him into the dirt, shoving some of the earth into his mouth. Akame coughed and spat out the dirt; then he wheeled to face his contender.

"Hello!" said the pup in a friendly way. He was chocolate, tan, and black, with a playful grin and a curled tail. His body was mostly the aforementioned chocolate, with his underbelly a light shade of tan; he had black eyespots, and his round, russet eyes suggested naughtiness or indecent behavior, but his most distinguishing feature was a Mohawk from the top of his head to the nape of his neck, tan like his underbelly. His ears, on either side of the Mohawk, were purely black.

Akame didn't notice most of that though. What he saw was a collar around the pup's neck, but he didn't smell of humans.

"Heyyy," said the pup. Akame's head snapped up to meet his quizzical look. "I've never seen a white Dog before. What's your name? I'm Kurojaki."

"My name is Akame," said Akame, unsure as to whether or not he should make a dash for it or stay.

"Are you a Nīnken also?" asked Kurojaki expectantly, obviously hoping for a fight. Akame didn't want to fight.

"No, I'm a wild dog," he stuttered, and Kurojaki's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Liar," he chuckled, and sprang.

Akame was a Nīnken also, but he hadn't been training in the past few days and was, consequently, out of practice. He dodged just in time.

Kurojaki, however, was not about to let him escape. He flipped his body in order to face Akame, and triumphantly gave a "tsk" before ramming the other Nīnken on the head. Akame fell on the ground with a soft, muffled THUMP. As soon as he'd been able to gather his thoughts, he looked at Kurojaki angrily and growled from deep in his throat.

"I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT TO FIGHT!" he screamed. Kurojaki shook his head.

"You're one pitiful excuse for a Nīnken," he murmured. "You didn't tell me, you just tried lying in the hopes that I wouldn't try to kill you. I'm not killing a weakling like you. What House are you in, to fight so pitifully? It was the Iga, right?"

Akame thought of other Nīnken Villages with white dogs who fought pitifully. He found one. "No, I'm a descendant of the Akaīro," he said, relieved that he had not spent hours in the library for nothing.

"The Akaīro!" scoffed Kurojaki. "No wonder. The Akaīro are even weaker than the Iga, so I'm told…"

Akame growled again, but stopped midway. Liquid was dripping from between his eyes from his forehead.

"About to lose consciousness?" asked Kurojaki, the laugh in his voice barely concealed. "That's blood. It's red. It comes out from gaping wounds. Like the scar I gave you." He paused a moment. "I'll tell you, since you'll probably just end up food for the animals in the woods anyway. I am from the _Koga, _the elite Nīnken House; I am also next in line to becoming the leader of the Koga. Oh, well. If you live, Akame," he crooned, beginning to step back, "I'll take you out again."

Akame could only glower at Kurojaki's pride.

Kurojaki paused just then. "On second thought, I'll leave you at the Iga House," he said. "So that they can preserve your body, and that I can battle you again, when you're stronger. On fair ground." He giggled, liking his idea, and threw Akame onto his back.

That was the last memory the white Nīnken had before he fainted.

---

"Akame-sama. _Akame-sama._"

_Huh? Arrow-san?_ With great difficulty, Akame strained to open his eyes and found Arrow above him, with her blue eyes overflowing with worry. He also noted that he was in one of the village's more common medical bamboo-structure houses. A second later she was gushing all over him.

"How do you feel? Do you need more herbs to stem the blood? Does your head ache? What about your body? Can you move at all?"

"Arrow-san," he acknowledged in barely a whisper of a voice; "did you see – Kurojaki…"

"The Koga brat! He did this to you?" Arrow's eyes widened in horror. "I knew it! Cheating scum, stupid idiotic maggots, picking on one of the Iga's noble Nīnken like that! They're cannibals themselves-"

Akame, despite his head injury, was amused to find that the normally reserved Arrow was gawking and panicking over him.

After a moment, he just realized what Arrow had said. "Cannibals?"

"Eaters of Dog meat when they're Dogs themselves," snarled Arrow, pacing back and forth on the bamboo floor, her toenails clicking.

Akame's eyes widened at this revelation. He jumped up, but a pain in his head sent him sprawling back down on his bed.

"Akame-sama!" shouted Arrow, annoyed. "Your skull was almost broken! Right now it is very sore, so don't move!"

The white Nīnken snarled in contempt. "That Kurojaki … how dare he … eat meat from his own clan members … like the pile of Dogs in the forest…"

"Shh," Arrow cooed, coming closer to him. "Sleep now, Akame-sama. Don't worry, it's alright."

Relieved that Arrow had finally calmed down (right when he'd panicked, actually), Akame closed his eyes and listened to the chirping of the night crickets, the rustling of the trees, and the songs of the wind…

* * *

**Note: Thanks to Nagisha for reviewing. It's not fair that Akame never got any love! It's always the German Shepherds, like John or Jerome! Also, the italics in the prologue were just an introductory par., but okay, no italics or bolds 'cept for flashbacks and really strong feelings!  
Second note: The next Ginga fanfic will be Ginga Densetsu Kai.**


	3. Behind Enemy Lines

**Chapter Two**

**Behind Enemy Lines**

Akame had spent most of the last week in recuperation, waiting for the doctors to announce him healed. However, after the sixth day, he wondered whether they were purposedly not healing him as well as they should have – his scars hadn't disappeared yet, and besides, he was getting impatient, wanting to beat down Kurojaki for cannibalism and immorality. That would all be impossible, though, seeing that he wasn't yet allowed to go anywhere without some kind of chaperone. He really wanted to jump up, train vigorously, become robust, and slash that Kurojaki right in the heart.

So Akame was a very rash pup after his little run-in with the Koga heir.

Without exercise, Akame became very bored of just sitting in the village bamboo house, especially since his parents never came to look at him. Indeed, they had never said a word of praise to him, he remembered forlornly, because he was the _runt _and you just couldn't spare words on a _runt _and if you did you would be disgracing thirty generations of pride – just by talking to the _**runt.**_

Akame sighed and curled up into a ball. His only visitor was Arrow, his teacher, who still managed to stuff knowledge into his head without his dozing off. Four days ago, all of his other teachers were visitors too, but he had fallen asleep at their lectures and they'd been furious with him.

Bored.

_Bored._

He tried to think it harder.

**Bored.**

_**Bored.**_

Not quite there yet.

_**BORED!!!!!!!**_

Akame just couldn't take it anymore. He jumped out of bed and walked right out the door of that house. He would be the best Iga House shinobi-dog EVER…

_But on these jelly legs, _he told himself as his knees buckled under his weight, _no._

As he'd hoped, nobody noticed him much. He tried standing again, his bones creaking and protesting as they jointed properly, as they were able to stand straight again.

"And now, sprinting," he laughed, and dashed into the woods.

A pair of spring green eyes watched his flight, and then they blinked closed slowly.

"Idiot."

---

The white Nīnken raced across the forest floor, the map of Japan burned into his mind. The Koga territories were just some five hundred kilometers away, he knew. And for a Nīnken, that wasn't too hard.

Akame jumped a tree stump, tumbled through briar patches, and tunneled through dirt piles before he finally stopped at the Grand Koga House. He gasped.

His Iga House was more a homely, humble, dilapidation of a big Shinto temple than _this. _This was a mansion, made of gold and silver towers, with jewels crusting the doors, and green-tinted windows.

It made the Iga House look like a dwarf's lonely home than an honorable place to stay.

But it dawned on Akame that it only looked that way so that they could lure in wild Dogs and eat them. He snarled.

Akame was still, thankfully, in the foliage of trees, so nobody saw him. Creeping around the edge of the brush, he muttered under his breath as he saw Kurojaki ordering his workers around. It also seemed that he was surrounded by female Dogs and was boasting about his abilities to them.

That was the detonation point. He leaped out of the trees, startling the female Dogs. Kurojaki looked pleasantly surprised, and the worker Dogs swarmed over Akame, who bit and scratched and kicked. Futility. He was brought down and felt teeth digging into his limbs, and jaws catching his neck … a world of pain.

"Enough." Kurojaki's command forced the Kogas to let go of their capture, although they eyed Akame with apprehension, suspicion, and sadomasochism.

Humility.

"Akame, you're not ready to fight me?" asked Kurojaki, his voice sharp. "And yet you come here and try to attack me? Is there something wrong? Have I injured your brain?" He paused. "Keri."

One huge, buff Koga Nīnken made his way out of the crowd. "Yes?" he asked gruffly.

"Test out the pup." Kurojaki giggled. "See if he's worth your time as well as mine."

Akame's heart pounded fervently as Keri nodded and raised one paw. Evidently he had never cut his claws, either.

As it came down, Akame leaped onto his back and back into the trees' safety.

"After him," was Kurojaki's wry response to this upset. Keri lumbered into the forest.

_Shit, _thought Akame, using the word that his teachers would sometimes use when they were in a tight situation.

Keri lunged after the white Dog, but Akame, in desperation, climbed up a nearby tree. He wasn't sure if the technique would work with only one Iga Nīnken, but he would do anything to live on and defeat Kurojaki.

No matter what, no matter how, no matter the consequences.

He disappeared into the branches. And Keri, who was fat and slow, didn't notice. So he lingered around under the tree, while Akame positioned himself.

_At the ready…_

He launched downwards. "Eat this! Iga Ninja Technique! Raikaken!"

Keri, as mentioned before, was fat and slow. Akame's jaws crunched around his neck before he could look up and

_CRACK_

Akame didn't pause for a moment; he ran onto the Iga House, traumatized, in a daze.

It had been his first kill.

Kurojaki just laughed, impressed, and yelled after the fleeing Iga. "Stronger, Akame! Stronger! And when you are, your Iga's documents will belong to us!"

And even though he was traumatized, he kept the "Documents" information documented.

---

"Akame." Akaryu said with most sincerity. "What were you thinking, Akame?"

Akaryu was Akame's father, a strict and "noble" leader of the Iga. He was looking at his runty son with the glare in his eye. THE GLARE.

"I was bored," admitted Akame carelessly. "I was bored and I left the Iga Village and I ran away to go see what Kurojaki was up to…"

"And you come back with a bad tendon in you right hindleg," interrupted Akaryu.

"Yeah, what's my old man gonna do about it? Sneer at me?" snarled Akame, immediately biting his lower lip. An insult to your father was a very offensive assault, especially when your father was a Leader of the Village.

Akame was sent to bed without supper that night.

"Okay," he said through the door, "but don't blame me when they steal your 'secret documents!'"

Silence. And then his door opened.

Akaryu's eyes were narrowed. "They won't."

_Click._

Closed.

_Click._

Open again. This time, his father seemed thoughtful. "At least, not unless you get in the way, Akame. Sleep now."

_Click._

Closed.

* * *

**Note: Again, thanks to Nagisha for reviewing!**


	4. Several Ways

**Chapter Three**

**Several Ways**

Time passed and Akame grew stronger by way of the dojo. He learned how to use sai and kama and even the powerful nunchaku. He learned bushido, the Samurai Way of Honor, and how to lighten his body so he could move faster.

He was highly regarded as a model pupil of Yuuta-sensei, one of the official Iga Nīnken instructors, in time. He was fast becoming a renowned apprentice among the Iga, though he barely told them about Kurojaki anymore, but he wanted to be a warrior.

Although Akame was conspiring to be a warrior, he had become quiet and meditative, quite the opposite of most who wanted to have warrior status bestowed among them. For to be a warrior is a sign that you were honorable and loyal, but to be a quiet warrior meant that you were also highly intelligent, cunning, and unfaltering in any mission.

Akame was soon allowed to take a patrol around the borders with several other Nīnken. One of those days, he passed by a Koga Clan member, who shot him a poisonous look and dashed into the undergrowth.

"Why did he run from you, Akame-san?" asked one of his subordinates, a one-year-old Iga named Shiki.

"Well, I fought with his leader once," replied Akame. He was sniffing the undergrowth, trying to figure out if any enemies had trespassed, but his young inquisitor once again piped up and distracted his scan.

"That's really cool! Was he strong?"

"Very. I only barely escaped with my life."

The only older dog in the group snorted while the younger exchanged proud, excited looks. The older dog was named Mashiro, which wasn't very a distinct name (as it meant "pure white" - everybody in the Iga was pure white, for that matter, except for the POWs). He had fought in battles before and was discontent with such an inexperienced dog leading the patrol. In fact, dark plans were beginning to form in Mashiro's mind. He didn't like Akame very much, he was so young, so inexperienced...

"Mashiro-san," said Akame suddenly. Mashiro stopped pondering how he could bar his leader's path to glory before he got any further and looked at the younger dog, his eyes sparkling in adoration.

"Mashiro-san is always thinking," laughed Akame. "He will become a great warrior someday." He turned back to the road after Mashiro gave him a false smile. As soon as Akame had turned about, he scowled again. The younger dogs looked at him worriedly. One of them trotted to the head of the patrol and whispered to Akame.

"That Mashiro-san..."

"Killer aura," said Akame warily; he didn't seem to be the same polite leader he had just been to Mashiro. "Spare me the details."

The young dog stared. So he'd already known. What a great Nīnken indeed! Worthy of praise and unchallengeable, strong and pure, and...

"DUCK!" screamed Shiki as a Koga warrior glided over their heads, wielding a kama. The patrol ducked, well, most of them anyway, but Akame had seen it coming and lunged forward, ripping into the adversary's throat with his great teeth, pulling him down and slamming him down into the earth.

The Koga was so frightened that, as soon as Akame let him go, he ran squealing into the trees with his tail between his legs, leaving behind the kama and a trail of bloody pawprints. Akame sighed in relief and picked it up with his teeth and began digging a hole to bury it.

Mashiro had even more hatred of Akame, then, for he had ducked in cowardice, while Akame had hurt the enemy indeed.

But Akame didn't say much after burying the weapon, even after being showered with praise from the young dogs, and instead suggested that the trail of pawprints should be followed. Mashiro growled and said that he would be leading the way if such a leader would be so ruthless and kill whomever crossed their path. Shiki and his comrades shot Mashiro withering glances, but Mashiro thought he had won. But he hadn't.

Far from it.

Akame stopped his troops just short of the woods' end. "Be careful," he said. "Kurojaki may be about, and he is no easy one to defeat."

Mashiro snorted and some Koga youngsters flicked their ears and looked at the trees nervously. Shiki wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Why do they all look so weird?" he asked, noticing their tall moehawks and spotted fur. "They look like the African wild dogs we saw in the Scroll of Species."

Akame answered, "Their skin is probably mottled because they are cannibals." His juniors stared at hi min horror.

"N-no way," breathed Kaoru, the youngest, who was only nine months old. However, the Iga forces had been pitifully depleted for a couple of moons now, and soldiers were recruited early, though never earlier than seven and a half months.

Mashiro became sick of the sitting in the bushes and watching, but he was surprised when Akame's ears pricked and his body tensed. The camp fell quiet as well as the patrol before a guard came trotting up to them and Akame bellowed, "RUN!"

And they made a break for it, seven Koga on their tails.

Mashiro snuck out into the night; he had been shamed to death when Akame had told them to run. Mashiro was a proud Iga and as such was not fond of defeat. He could hear Akame's words in his head loudly, blaring.

"A good soldier does not only know when to attack, but also when to run. We were outnumbered."

Who was he to think that he could order an older dog around?

Mashiro found one of the major paths that led to the forest. It was dark, very dark; he wasn't exactly fond of the dark, as his fur was stark against the ebony, ten-fingered trees. There was a sharp whoosh behind him; he turned around. He had been on the path for ten minutes now, contemplating his hatred of Akame. But he blinked in the black, confused but trying to be brave. After all, he was an Iga. A proud Ninja Dog of the Iga. He swiveled and told himself to stop worrying, keeping his eyes ahead of himself. And that was where Mashiro made his one fatal mistake. Because for all his experience, enemies do not just attack from behind and the front.

They have peripherals on their side, too, and in the night a shrill, pained cry woke up the Iga. The pups stirred and yapped, the Nīnken jumped, the bitches whined. And in the morning, when the patrol would set out to investigate, they would see Mashiro's bloody, severed head on the ground, pecked at by scavengers, his eyes out of their sockets and his tongue lolling out of his mouth. And there would have been a message on a scroll there, too, a scroll that said:

"Take this warning into account - beware the Koga. We can find you."

Shortly after Mashiro's unsightly decapitated head, the Iga restricted any dog to leave safe boundaries without being escorted by a Nīnken or an adult male. The pups, however, played with this new rule, stretching it as far as it would go - wandering to the edge of the forest and maybe to the tree stump a little beyond, until their mother or father, voice shaking with trepidation and anger, called tem back and gave them sound punishment.

Akame, whose instincts made him tense, nervous and incontinent, paced frequently about the borders, pouncing on any bush that moved, every leaf that fell to the ground. He was restless; this feeling had never come to him before, and of course it wouldn't have. For now, it was the Iga females' rutting period and Akame had no slight idea how to mind that. He had been vaguely taught by Arrow about it, but she refused to have any other word on the matter.

It was then that he noticed spring green eyes peering at him through the bushes. He sniffed. "Come out of there."

Carefully, one paw, then the other, pulled the rest of a sleek black body out of the bushes. Akame looked at the result in disgust.

It was a big, black cat who stared at him. The cat gave a most bored yawn and looked at Akame furtively. Yet Akame could tell, with one look at the cat as a whole, that it was a superlative specimen and probably dangerous.

"Who might you be?" asked Akame.

The cat stared, then spoke. "My name is Kumo of the Nekomata." He laughed, flicking his long tail, and Akame saw that in the middle it had branched in two. "Everybody's tails get cut when they become a Nekomata," he added as he caught Akame's frightened expression. "You're a Neko first, then through Initiation you'll become a Bakeneko, and with age and skill, like me - a Nekomata."

"It's ugly," stated Akame, feeling like a child. How could he be so narrow minded, not knowing anything that hadn't to do with Iga and Koga matters?

"Never mind if it's ugly." Kumo nodded toward the camp. "Your females are having their rutting periods, I see. Won't you fight?"

"I have no knowledge of it whatsoever and I'm not interested," replied Akame haughtily.

"That really is a shame!" exclaimed Kumo, his eyes flickering in delight. "The pups that are born, passing down your generation! You do not want that?"

"Fodder!" scoffed Akame. "Who needs pups? What we really need is strength and unity, not some stupid 'rutting period!'"

"Your thoughts will change."

"Not now, they won't. I'm a warrior." Inside the camp, he would never be so boastful. But to a cat? Let him be.

"In time, they will. I don't expect them to in the near future. You _are _ a pup, after all." Kumo started licking and grooming himself, continuing to when Akame retaliated.

"I am not a pup! I am as much a pup as you are ... as you are a part of the Koga clan! I'm a warrior! I'll prove it! Fight me!" Akame crouched low, tensing his muscles. Kumo, however, didn't move form his position, instead keeping one lazy, green eye on the white dog. Growling in frustration, Akame pounced, springing onto his hind legs, and Kumo immediately ducked.

Akame went flying into the bushes directly above where Kumo had been a moment before and into the edge of the forest. He started spitting out leaves, heaving, and watched in humiliation as the black cat drew himself back up into a dignified position.

"You overshot. It seems you are a close-range fighter ... possibly middle-range. You are not able to attack from far, that much is clear. If you were a real warrior, you would have been able to launch yourself in front of me, react accordingly to my movements, actually pose a threat. You are a pup."

Despite being stung by Kumo's words, Akame was forced to accept them. He hadn't been very wise - he should have known that merely jumping on an enemy would be of no effect. "What should I do to get better at long-range fighting, then? Is Ninjutsu enough?"

"Not at all, it is not enough. Not for a Nīnken. Come and train with me. I'll come out of camp and teach you something, pup." Kumo once again began to groom himself.

"Is that all right?"

"I am a highly respected Nekomata. You appear to be a highly respected Nīnken. We are well off enough so that no one wants to ask questions, I hope. Our first meeting will be tomorrow. Are we made clear?"

Akame nodded, eager to have his first lesson, and Kumo gave a slight incline of his sleek, shiny black head, darting back into the forest like a dab of black paint.

* * *

**Note: I'm back, everyone! Sorry for the longer-than-usual wait and thank you to all of the people who reviewed - Dark Scimitar, Fangsire, and LanturtheMarlfox (I wholeheartedly agree!) From now on, I'll try to update as fast as I can. Hopefully you'll all stick around to the end. It's been too long, everyone!**


	5. Cats and Dogs

**Chapter Four**

**Cats and Dogs**

Kumo, as he had promised, was waiting for Akame at the same place as they had met. Kumo in particular was amused at how the Nīnken was tittering and excited about learning long-range fighting. These dogs really were really fond of melees, weren't they? Ah, well, that would change soon.

The Nekomata led Akame to a field, warning him to tread quietly here. Long-range fighting was often as silent as it was deadly, he explained. One had to be excellent at surveying the battlefield if they were to ever even hope to be a long-ranged fighter. Akame listened attentively, wondering why he had never been taught long-range in the Iga camp. He voiced this concern of his.

"Cats and dogs are different," replied Kumo, although frankly, his voice was indifferent as could be. "Cats like using stealth and cunning. Dogs like battling it out with brute strength. All in all, however, ninjas need both elements to survive. Without strength, a ninja cannot survive for long in a battle. Without stealth, a ninja would be easily tracked in enemy territory. This is the reason dogs, lacking stealth, and cats, lacking strength, appear to balance each other. Until, of course, Kurojaki's clan came along." Kumo shivered. "Eating dogs like that, we'll get blamed soon if he keeps it up."

"You?" asked Akame, stunned; he couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that. Cats eat dogs? Impossible! "What can you do to us?"

Kumo's eyes flashed, half in anger, half in amusement. "We cats know more than you think, pup. As is evidenced by my tutoring of you today. Now, the first thing about long-range fighting is, you need silence. Stealth, cunning, things like that. Another thing is, it must be unpredictable. Projectiles are the easiest to use, although there are certain fighting techniques that guarantee some sort of long-range preparation or style. However, we will stick to projectiles for today. Follow me, pup." The black cat slipped into the forest once again, and Akame followed him good-naturedly.

The two of them arrived at a rather sandy place in the forest. Around the sandy area were far more rocks than any other part of the woods. Kumo grabbed several stones with his teeth and gracefully climbed up a tree. Akame felt himself grin; cats were so lightweight. They could do that too easily.

Kumo put the stones down, balancing them carefully on his branch. Looking down at the white dog, he called, "What long-range fighting is for us, is a simple move-and-shoot." Kumo looked around, found a more fleshy, broad leaf than the others and lifted a stone onto it. Then he pulled the branch back as far as he could without making the stone fall, waited several seconds while aiming, and released, successfully launching the rock into a hole of a far-away tree, making a squirrel jump out and complain. "And that, pup," declared Kumo, "is long-range fighting. Well, the gist of it, anyway. It's harder than it looks, however. Come up here."

Akame scaled the tree, running into trouble with the foliage, and while still slightly blinded by the leaves and the light that filtered through them (so stupid, stupid, stupid), he attempted to find Kumo. The cat, however, was far calmer and a tad more intelligent, and gave a loud mew to pinpoint his position. Akame soon found him.

"Here," said Kumo, gesturing to the same broad leaf. "You will put a stone onto this and launch it to hit..." He scanned the ground momentarily, pointing out a massive rock with his paw. "That rock."

"Are you underestimating me?" Akame asked him, wondering whether or not the cat was taking him seriously.

"No. Rather, I think I'm _over_estimating you. But really. This is how it works." He took another stone in his teeth, dropped it onto the leaf, and bent it back. "Now you show me what you're capable of."

Akame replaced Kumo, levelling his eyes with the leaf, and aimed at the rock in the undergrowth below. When he found a satisfying angle, he let the leaf go. The rock went flying into the air and Akame watched excitedly as it sailed, arced - missed?

"How is that...?" he asked Kumo, outraged at how he could have missed a massive rock that was just _there._

"I told you it wasn't as easy as it looked. Anyway, you did well for the most part, seems like you only missed by a couple of inches. Pay more attention next time you shoot it, you'll do fine."

Akame suppressed a groan. "This isn't real fighting!" Real fighting was being on the battlegrounds in your _yoroi _and _sai, _making your enemies fear you, dominating those who were dishonourable.

"You don't expect to get an opponent on the battlefield without training?"

"No, but this is _ridiculous._ These rocks don't do damage anyway."

Kumo sighed. "No, but boulders certainly do, and all masters of the battlefield have to know something about catapulting. That's what this is called."

"Well, teach me later. I don't need to know this kind of thing." Despite Kumo's protests, Akame dropped back down to the ground via the branches, finding the lesson done. "I don't think I'll become a real warrior like this!"

"You'll regret it." Kumo's voice, now icy cold, sends shivers through Akame, making his fur stand on end. "The Koga are some of the most cunning monsters around. If you don't make the most out of your time, Kurojaki will destroy your precious clan. Mark my words! You _will _learn that not everything is close combat!"

Hating himself, Akame ran back to the Iga village, Kumo's words more or less echoing in his ears.

Cats. What did they know, anyway.

* * *

**A/N: 'Tis short, I know. ;A; I don't really know how to make Kumo act. He's one of those snarky mentors, but ... *shakes head* Stay tuned, if you're not disappointed in me! (Because I fell flat on my face writing this chapter.)**


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